Buddha nature

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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Dan74
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Re: Buddha nature

Post by Dan74 »

BuddhaSoup wrote:I'll throw in 2 baht on this very interesting discussion.

I read a bit from Ajahn Thanissaro's treatise on Buddha Nature: This is why the Buddha said that the mind is luminous, stained with defilements that come and go. Taken out of context, this statement might be construed as implying that the mind is inherently awakened. But in context the Buddha is simply saying that the mind, once stained, is not permanently stained. When the conditions for the stains are gone, the mind becomes luminous again. But this luminosity is not an awakened nature.

This status of luminosity suggests to me that, rather than the mind having Buddha "nature," the mind has Buddha potential. Inherent potential. This idea of luminosity suggests potential energy that does not convert into momentum until it is released. The analogy of that is the kyudo archer, who draws the bow (potential energy) and by virtue of the meditation, the moment arrives on its own accord and the arrow is released.

By the way, I failed physics in college. I have practiced kyudo, though.

The above is what you get for 2 baht.
Whether the mind is made luminous through the removal of defilements or that luminosity is revealed when the defilements are gone, is perhaps a matter of perspective.

To a healthy person confronted with a paranoid account of persecution, the danger is not real, but to the sick person it is. Is the sick person inherently free or is he persecuted? Even though the demons that oppress him have no tangible reality, to him, they are real.

Whatever keeps us in bondage appears real and inevitable to us, yet from an enlightened perspective, these fantoms, imaginary desires and identifications are no more than a mirage. Nothing real binds us. In that sense perhaps we are inherently enlightened.

But this thread is in Theravada subforum and if people would like to discuss this, it should be in the context of Theravada teachings, like Ajahn Dune Atulo, Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Maha Boowa, etc. Perhaps we can have a good look at those writings before going further. So I will bow out for now with thanks to the participants, who as Retro said have been courteous, diplomatic and some even thoughtful and open.
_/|\_
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ground
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Re: Buddha nature

Post by ground »

greggorious wrote:After practicing Zen for a couple of years I have started the practice of Vipassana and Samadha, as I prefer these meditations. For the most part I like therevada Buddhism. However I'm still heavily influenced by the Mahayana and I believe in Buddha nature. I've been told more than once that Buddha nature is not a Therevadin concept. Does this mean that we don't have the seed of enlightenment within us. I see Buddha nature everywhere, within my family, friends, even my Cats, and just because I've turned to Therevada I wont change this belief. :)
But since you are practicing vipassana ... have you ever found a "nature" that may be validly called "Buddha nature"? If not your believing obviously is a thought believing in another thought, i.e. thought grasping thought, thought indulging in itself.

Kind regards
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Dan74
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Re: Buddha nature

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A quote from Ajahn Sumedho former Thai Forest Tradition abbot of Amaravati Monastery UK
"The "I am" is a perception - isn't it? - and "God" is a perception. They're conventionally valid for communication and so forth, but as a practice, if you don't let go of perception then you tend to still have the illusion - an illusoriness coming from a belief in the perception of the overself, or God or the Oneness or Buddha Nature, or the divine substance or the divine essence, or something like that."
http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books3/Ajahn ... n_Time.htm


_/\_[/quote]
The way I understand Ajahn Sumedho's teaching here is that we should be careful not to cap our inquiry by some imagine superconstruct. The moment we are invested in this notion (or experience that seems to support it) that moment we are stuck. Clinging to any such "thing" like Buddha nature is clinging and is to be let go. This is standard teaching in Mahayana too.

Cittasanto wrote:
Dan74 wrote:That may be so, Mike, but as you probably know the term Buddha nature has been in wide circulation in Thai Buddhism, not least in the Forest tradition.
Hi Dan,
I personally have not noticed this, have you an example?
I am reading Ajahn Amaro's Small Boat, Great Mountain just now and I think it is an excellent source if you are interested in this question and for many other reasons.

http://www.amaravati.org/downloads/pdf/SmallBoat.pdf
Last edited by Dan74 on Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
_/|\_
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Cittasanto
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Re: Buddha nature

Post by Cittasanto »

Dan74 wrote:
Cittasanto wrote:
Dan74 wrote:That may be so, Mike, but as you probably know the term Buddha nature has been in wide circulation in Thai Buddhism, not least in the Forest tradition.
Hi Dan,
I personally have not noticed this, have you an example?
I am reading Ajahn Amaro's Small Boat, Great Mountain just now and I think it is an excellent source if you are interested in this question and for many other reasons.

http://www.amaravati.org/downloads/pdf/SmallBoat.pdf
I have read that book, and yes it was given in a particular context of a Dzogchen retreat, where Ajahn Amaro was sitting with the teacher as it was part of the centres policy for guest teachers to be accompanied for their first few retreats, so may use terms not native to theravada, and as a result not a good source of the example sought.

but it is a very good book and I have a hard copy.
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
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Dan74
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Re: Buddha nature

Post by Dan74 »

Cittasanto wrote:
Dan74 wrote: I am reading Ajahn Amaro's Small Boat, Great Mountain just now and I think it is an excellent source if you are interested in this question and for many other reasons.

http://www.amaravati.org/downloads/pdf/SmallBoat.pdf
I have read that book, and yes it was given in a particular context of a Dzogchen retreat, where Ajahn Amaro was sitting with the teacher as it was part of the centres policy for guest teachers to be accompanied for their first few retreats, so may use terms not native to theravada, and as a result not a good source of the example sought.

but it is a very good book and I have a hard copy.
The point is not the terms he used, but the essence of the teachings. In Zen, for instance, Buddha nature does not seem to be as common as Original Mind and both are relatively uncommon, in translations at least, where one finds terms which are more like tasks, "The Great Matter", "Task of a Lifetime" and even more often it is not expressed at all.

When Ajahn Amaro writes (for instance):
Up until the point when Ajahn Chah met his teacher Ajahn
Mun, he said he never really understood that mind and its
objects existed as separate qualities, and that, because of getting
the two confused and tangled up, he could never find peace. But
Small Boat, Great Mountain
28
what he had got from Ajahn Mun—in the three short days he
spent with him—was the clear sense that there is the knowing
mind, the poo roo, the one who knows, and then there are the
objects of knowing. These are like a mirror and the images that
are reflected in it. The mirror is utterly unembellished and
uncorrupted by either the beauty or the ugliness of the objects
appearing in it. The mirror doesn’t even get bored. Even when
there is nothing reflected in it, it is utterly equanimous, serene.
This was a key insight for Ajahn Chah, and it became a major
theme for his practice and teaching from that time onward.
He would compare the mind and its objects to oil and water
contained in the same bottle. The knowing mind is like the oil,
and the sense impressions are like the water. Primarily because
our minds and lives are very busy and turbulent, the oil and
water get shaken up together. It thus appears that the knowing
mind and its objects are all one substance. But if we let the system
calm down, then the oil and the water separate out; they are
essentially immiscible.
There’s the awareness, the Buddha-mind, and the impressions
of thought, the sensory world, and all other patterns of consciousness.
The two naturally separate out from each other; we
don’t have to do a thing to make it happen. Intrinsically, they are
not mixed. They will separate themselves out if we let them.
At this point, we can truly can see that the mind is one thing
and the mind-objects are another. We can see the true nature of
mind, mind-essence, which knows experience and in which all
of life happens; and we can see that that transcendent quality is
devoid of relationship to individuality, space, time, and movement.
All of the objects of the world—its people, our routines
and mind states—appear and disappear within that space.
he is expressing the essence of the Buddha nature teachings that I have received in Mahayana.
_/|\_
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Cittasanto
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Re: Buddha nature

Post by Cittasanto »

Hi Dan,
Well that still isn't an example of Buddha nature being used.
as you claimed
the term Buddha nature has been in wide circulation in Thai Buddhism, not least in the Forest tradition.
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
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Dan74
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Re: Buddha nature

Post by Dan74 »

Cittasanto wrote:Hi Dan,
Well that still isn't an example of Buddha nature being used.
as you claimed
the term Buddha nature has been in wide circulation in Thai Buddhism, not least in the Forest tradition.
You are right, Citta, I have not provided evidence to justify that it is in wide circulation. So I will retract with apologies and amend to say that teachings akin to the Mahayana teachings on Buddha nature have been in wide circulation in Thai Buddhism, not least in the Forest tradition.
_/|\_
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Cittasanto
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Re: Buddha nature

Post by Cittasanto »

Dan74 wrote:
Cittasanto wrote:Hi Dan,
Well that still isn't an example of Buddha nature being used.
as you claimed
the term Buddha nature has been in wide circulation in Thai Buddhism, not least in the Forest tradition.
You are right, Citta, I have not provided evidence to justify that it is in wide circulation. So I will retract with apologies and amend to say that teachings akin to the Mahayana teachings on Buddha nature have been in wide circulation in Thai Buddhism, not least in the Forest tradition.
Akin to some interpretations, yes, I would say there are many things similar, and would go as far to say Ajahn Sumedho is more Mahayana than Theravada at times, particularly with the sound of silence teachings which are clearly related to Avalokitsvara (sp?) and the teachings of some Mahayana Bhikshus and Theravada Bhikkhus are so close at times it is only the expression making them different. However Tahn Ajahn actually uses what it is called in the west, I am not sure about Thailand, that being "The One Who Knows." This gives a different flavour to the impression it gives the listener in general, I think.
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
dreamov
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Re: Buddha nature

Post by dreamov »

Does this mean
that we don't have the seed of
enlightenment within us.
Not unless we attain stream entry, we won't.
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tiltbillings
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Re: Buddha nature

Post by tiltbillings »

This should make it as clear as day:
  • -- The tathagatagarbha [buddha-nature] is not just any emptiness,
    however. Rather it is specifically emptiness of inherent existence when
    applied to a sentient being's mind, his (her) mental continuum. ... When
    the mind is defiled in the unenlightened state this emptiness is called
    tathagatagarbha. When the mind has become pure through following the
    path and attaining Buddhahood so emptiness is referred to in the dGe
    lugs tradition as the Buddha's Essence Body (_svabhavikakaya_). The
    Buddha's pure mind in that state is his Gnosis or Wisdom Body
    (_jnanakaya_), while the two taken together, the Buddha's mind as a
    flow empty of inherent existence, is what the tradition calls the
    _dharmakaya._ ... This also means that the tathagatagarbha itself is
    strictly the fundamental cause of Buddhahood, and is no way identical
    with the result, _dharmakaya_ or Essence Body as the case may be,
    except in the sense that both defiled mind and Buddha's mind are empty
    of inherent existence. ...which is to say that even the _dharmakaya_,
    and, of course, emptiness itself, are all empty of inherent existence.
    They are not 'truly established', there is no Absolute in the sense of an
    ultimate really existing entity. --- Paul Williams MAHAYANA
    BUDDHISM, pub by Routledge. Pg 106-7.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
darvki
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Re: Buddha nature

Post by darvki »

Medicine for the sick. Bhante Dhammika didn't have any qualms using it in his writing.
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